AMD Confirms 32nm Yield Issues at Global Foundries
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 28, 2011 6:41 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Bulldozer
- AMD
- GlobalFoundries
AMD just announced revised revenue projections for Q3. Revenue is up compared to Q2 by 4 - 6%, but AMD had originally expected an increase of 10%. The reason for the revised projections? Llano supply is limited by apparently poor yields on Global Foundries' 32nm process. We had heard rumors to this effect for a while, but now they're officially confirmed by AMD.
The official statement is below:
The less-than-forecasted preliminary third quarter 2011 revenue results are primarily due to 32 nanometer (nm) yield, ramp and manufacturing issues at GLOBALFOUNDRIES in its Dresden, Germany factory that limited supply of "Llano". Additionally, 45nm supply was less than expected due to complexities related to the use of common tools across both technology nodes. AMD continues to work closely with its key partner GLOBALFOUNDRIES to improve 32nm yield performance in order to satisfy strong demand for AMD products.
The bigger concern in the near term is the impact this will have on the ramp of Bulldozer. Llano wasn't a huge chip, Bulldozer is.
Source: AMD
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ArKritz - Thursday, September 29, 2011 - link
Lol, if Intel didn't need to sell a few LGA2011 CPU's, they'd probably squeeze out the 22 nm Ivy Brigde before Bulldozer hits the shelves.BSMonitor - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link
LOLMy point exactly. That and they probably are waiting to see exactly how high to clock these things, to blow Bulldozer out of the water.
etamin - Thursday, September 29, 2011 - link
Nvidia had this very same problem in the first half of 2010 with Fermi being released on the 40nm node. Every time a process is shrunken, these delays come as no surprise (unfortunately it just adds to the already poor BD situation) and I see this as an opportunity to buy AMD stock. Llano has proven itself and BD is sure to gain market share especially in the server market. I'd the stock is profitable with an outlook of six months or so...If I'm wrong about comparing this to the Fermi fiasco, please comment.
Proxicon - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
Seems like their is always a "problem with the yields" or "supply disruption" right before the launch of a new chip. Seen this before haven't we? Seriously getting tired of it.I swear if Bulldozer is selling above retail prices and in short supply on launch, then I am going to definitely be buying a core I7 2600K, like I have been thinking about doing.
My last 4 or 5 processors have all been AMD, mainly because of the price. I have been really happy with them except somewhere in the back of my mind I knew they were only second best. Now, I have been patiently waiting for a "Core I7 slayer" or at least a competitor for it. I have a little extra money to spend this time around and I have decided that I will have somewhere near the best processor available even if that means jumping ship and buying Intel.
If Bulldozer doesn't deliver, I can't tell you how disappointed I will be.
Targon - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
You can expect that Bulldozer will be faster per-clock and per-core than the older K10.5 chips(Phenom 2, Athlon 2, or even the AMD A-series chips), so the big question is how much, and how things compare in performance per dollar as well. A Bulldozer chip with 8 real cores running at 3.6GHz should be faster with multi-threaded applications than an Intel i7 chip with 4 real cores as well, but until the NDA comes off, we won't know what the performance levels are going to be.Remember also that the B2 stepping of Bulldozer DID have some problems that affected performance, which is a part of why there was a delay in Zambezi. Let's hope that the performance in released chips really does eclipse what we have seen with the K10.5 chips and that hitting a full 8-cores running at 4.5GHz on high end air will be the standard for the first released versions as well.
silverblue - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
I wouldn't be totally surprised if AMD restricted Zambezi to a limited production run in order to get good stocks of Piledriver ready.dacollins - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
I hate to say it, but I don't have high hopes for AMD's future. I used to be a strong AMD supporter but they have not truly been competitive since Intel launched the Core2 Duo. Sandy Bridge only extended Intel's lead; I own three second-gen i5's and they are incredible processors. Can Bulldozer compete? Possibly, but with current SNB processors binned conservatively and 22nm Ivy Bridge just around the corner, I fear any advantage will be short lived.Anand, when you finally get to test and publish benchmarks for Bulldozer, can you include some virtualization benchmarks? I like to compartmentalization my IT work, various development projects, school and personal computer use into different VMs running in VirtualBox. The SNB Core i5 in my laptop handles this load incredibly well and I'm very curious to see how Bulldozer can compete. Something as simple as running benchmarks simultaneously in a few VMs would be great to see.